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Monday, April 11, 2011

Freebie + give-away

Today is my birthday! I turned 41 and since I have no hangups about aging I am quite happy with that. I still can't believe I have the privilege of getting to be a real grown up (well... sort of) and see how it feels to get older. I like how I get a better sense of self and more peace of mind with who I am as the years go by. That being said, the years do go by way too fast, don't they? ;-)

To celebrate this joyous occasion I thought I'd hand out two gifts to you, my sweet readers. The first is a little freebie for all of you and the second is for one lucky person who gets drawn from a hat (or a cap or whatever else I have available at the moment). Read on for the details.

Freebie sheet of self made labels:
I am currently working on a new handmade journal, that will be somewhat ROD-style, but with all the elements made by me, myself and I, so no recycled parts or pretty ready made papers this time. This means I am painting and decorating papers myself and thinking about how I want the cover to look, but also that I want to make my own tags and labels and other decorative elements to put inside the book. It's the first time I'm doing something like this, so it's a fun challenge to draw my own designs.

I finished my first sheet of labels/tags this weekend and I thought I would share it with you. I drew the labels with a fineliner and colored them in with gouache and felt tip pens. The outer shapes are from a stencil that I have for a cutting system by Fiskars. But what's in these shapes is all my own doing. I haven't had such fun in drawing in a long time. They are simple, but colorful and I hope you like them. If you click on the picture it will take you to my flickr, where you can download the original size. It's scanned at 300 dpi, so it should be good enough to print. I recommend printing it on cardstock or (even better) watercolor paper. There is little black line on the top and left side of the image (I did not trim the scan correctly and was too lazy to correct it), but it's outside of the labels, so it shouldn't matter.

For future reference: I will make at least three more sheets of labels/tags and I will put those up as freebies as well when they are done, so stay tuned! I can't wait to incorporate them in the new journal. The colors just make me so happy.

First blog give-away
My second gift to you is my first blog give-away! I anounced it a short while back and now it's here.
Recently I finished two notebooks that are 6x6 inches (15x15 cm), inspired by my ROD journal. They are filled with beautiful scrapbook papers and elements, all by Tilda. They were a try out for me to see how a different size and a different kind of cover would work out, so I am keeping one myself as a sample and the other one goes to one of you! Here's a picture of the two books together, you get to win the top one, because it turned out just a little better than the other one.

Here are some spreads of the book you might win:

And here are some overall views to give you an idea of the outside and inside.

The book has 24 pages of two different sizes and the inside covers have pockets to put stuff into.

If you want to win this little book, all you have to do if leave a comment on this post before next monday (april 18). That day I will put your names in a container and draw a lucky winner. I have no idea if any of you even want this little notebook, but hey, if there's only one who does that one is sure to get it, haha, so if you like it I hope you participate! I will post the winner a week from now! Looking forward to your responses.

Happy birthday! Whoo-hoo...I loved that book when I saw it in your first post, and the thought that I could win it is VERY exciting! I love the colors on the cover, and the pages inside are GORGEOUS! I liked reading about your new journal, too. Sounds like a VERY fun challenge.

Happy Birthday Caatje! As my 50-year old friends said to me when I turned 40 -- "you're still a just baby!". Hope you enjoy the day. Thanks so much for sharing your beautiful tags and the journal looks lovely. Great work! Best, Michelle

Happy Birthday! I love the little book you made, but please don't include me as I am not a regular reader or commenter on your blog. I just found you and will be back to visit but don't think it would be fair for me to be included. Just want you to know that you did a GREAT job on this little book. The paper selections are so coordinated and overall, very pretty. Nice job! Hope you enjoyed your special day!!

Happy Birthday, belatedly!! Your ROD book is gorgeous!! I am currently taking ROD and ALMBH and am loving them both. MaryAnn and Kelly are two of my favorite bloggers and teachers and through Kelly I have found your blog--I love what a connected world we have!!